Health officials swung into action and identified 485 primary and secondary contacts of the UK returnees in South Coastal Andhra Pradesh in the last 24 hours.
Even as fresh cases fell to a low of 17 in the region during the period, tracing primary and secondary contacts of UK returnees kept the health professionals on toes. After accounting for duplicate entries, the number of UK returnees was put at 128 in the region.
As many as 378 primary and secondary contacts of the UK returnees underwent COVID test so far in the districts of SPSR Nellore and Prakasam, according to official sources.
Health officials in Nellore alerted their counterparts in Chittoor, where the wife of a UK returnee who had tested positive, resided.
Health professionals heaved a sigh of relief as except for 62 persons whose test results were awaited, the other persons tested negative for the disease in the two districts.
Nellore District Medical and Health Officer S. Rajyalakshmi told The Hindu that all the UK returnees had been traced. While one person from Nellore was at Amritsar now, four other persons hailing from the district were now at Bengaluru, Yet another person had returned to UK.
In Prakasam district, 138 primary and 103 secondary contacts of the UK returnees were tested. Except for 20 persons whose test reports were awaited, rest of them had tested negative, Prakasam DMHO P.Ratnavalli said.
Prakasam district reported just one new case in a span of 24 hours, taking the cumulative confirmed cases to 61,983, a health bulletin released by the State Government said on Saturday night. The active cases fell to just 136 as 75 patients were cured of the disease during the period.
In SPSR Nellore district, 16 fresh cases took the total number of positive cases to 63,609 in the last 24 hours. The number of active cases dipped to 541 as 97 patients were cured of the disease during the period, the health bulletin said.
